Crutches
by Estarla
Summary: Rinoa and Zell get another trouble-making idea and Rinoa is on crutches. Warning: contains a clumsy Rinoa, and an annoyed commander!
1. In Trouble

Crutches

**Chapter one: In trouble**

Dr. Kadowaki sighed as she marked something down in her notes. "Rinoa, you really have to be more careful! You have a level two sprain and you're going to have to use crutches for at least five days. What were you doing anyway?"

Rinoa shifted her gaze remembering the conversation her and Zell had previously...(flashback) Rinoa was walking down the hallway when she felt a tap on her shoulder. She quickly spun around to see her friend, Zell, standing there. "Hey, Rinoa. I have an idea!"

Oh no. Whenever Zell started a conversation like this Rinoa knew it was trouble. The two had become really close friends and were the known trouble-makers of Garden. The thing is, Rinoa knew Zell was going to propose something crazy, dangerous, and liable to get them both in trouble, but she couldn't resist. "What is it Zell?"

"I think we should try to climb up the side of Garden!"

Rinoa just stared at the blonde boy, mouth dropped almost to the floor in shock. "What?!"

"Yeah! It would be so awesome! I tried to convince Irvine to do it with me, but he just gave me a weird look. Kind of like the look you're giving me now!" Zell smiled to try and make her agree to go. He was just itching for a new challenge, and this was his chance.

"Zell, this is going too far. If Squall were to-"

"Oh, come on! What happened to your sense of adventure? What did the commander do to you anyway?" Zell looked at Rinoa and noticed she was starting to look annoyed. _Almost there..._ "Is the good ol' commander dampening your rebellious spirit?" Zell always knew exactly which buttons to push with his friend. She hated admitting that hanging out with Squall had slightly affected her, and caused her to become less adventurous.

"No! Fine, I'll do it Zell. Meet me tonight in the quad, bring your gear!" (end flashback)

"Weeell..." Rinoa looked up at the doctor who rolled her eyes and began rubbing her temples.

"Rinoa, please don't tell me this had something to do with Zell." The doctor looked at Rinoa clinging to the hope that they hadn't been up to no good again. Her hopes were immediately shot down when Rinoa fixated her gaze on the floor, not willing to look in the doctor's eyes. Dr. Kadowaki sighed once again, "What was it this time?"

Rinoa realized it was hopeless to try and hide it from the good doctor and gave in, _Zell's going to kill me._ "We were trying to climb the side of Garden from the quad, and I lost my footing and fell." Rinoa didn't want to look in the older woman's eyes, but had to know the level of her punishment. As she looked up she saw something she wasn't expecting. The doctor was trying to stifle a laugh!

When Dr. Kadowaki regained her composure she looked at Rinoa. "You do realize I'm going to have to tell the commander, don't you?" Rinoa silently nodded her head as she looked back at the floor, swinging her feet off the edge of the medical bed like a five-year-old. "Alright then, I'll call him down." Dr. Kadowaki walked out of the room and picked up the phone and began to dial the few numbers to contact the commander.

"Commander Squall Leonhart of Balamb Garden speaking how may I be of assistance?" Dr. Kadowaki tried to hide chuckle. You could tell he really didn't enjoy answering the phone, especially when he had to say more in just the greeting than he would normally in a conversation.

"Squall, I need you to come down to the infirmary, and pick up Zell on your way here." Dr. Kadowaki heard a sigh on the other end.

"Rinoa?" that was his only reply.

"You're getting good at this Squall!"

"Did it have anything to do with chocoboes or hot dogs?"

The doctor chuckled again. "No, her and Zell only tried to climb the outside walls of Garden from the quad."

"They what?" Squall sighed again, "Whatever," Dr. Kadowaki heard the 'click' on the other end and returned to Rinoa.

Zell was walking down the halls of Garden, heading toward the library. _Okay, Zell. _He thought to himself, _Just act cool. Yeah, you can do it. Just ask her._ Zell began practicing what he was going to say to 'the library girl' when he saw her. "Hey, you want to go out some time? You know maybe get some hot dogs or something? Just you and me?"

"Really, Zell, I never thought you'd be that type, but if you insist."

Zell quickly looked up from the floor to see Squall looking at him. The guy looked dead serious. "Um, Squall?" Zell asked a little nervously.

"Kidding," Squall said and Zell couldn't help the sigh of relief that escaped his lips. "Oh, and you're in trouble. Follow me."

Zell involuntarily twitched. Crap, him and Rinoa were in so much trouble.

Rinoa watched as her boyfriend and her best friend entered the room. Squall ended up going on and on in 'commander mode' giving them a huge lecture about 'disturbance of the peace' or something like that. Rinoa acted like she was listening and knew she should be, but he could be so boring when he was giving a lecture. After he finished, both her and Zell responded with a "Yes, sir." Squall dismissed them and Zell left.

Dr. Kadowaki handed Rinoa a set of crutches already adjusted to her height. Rinoa stood up with her injured leg bent and leaned on the crutches. She took no more than five step/hobble/jumps/whatever when she started to fall face forward into the wall. Squall quickly reached forward trying to catch her, but was too late. Rinoa's head hit the wall, and she was still standing only because she was using the wall with her forehead for support.

Squall and Dr. Kadowaki waited for her to say something. After a long pause she let out a frustrated, "Ouch..." Squall went to help her gain her balance once again and moved aside. After Rinoa left rather clumsily from the infirmary the doctor looked over to Squall.

"It's going to be a long five days."

"She'll get used to them, won't she?" Squall looked somewhat hopeful at the doctor.

"Squall, Rinoa can barely walk without wreaking havoc when she's not injured or imbalanced. You've got your work cut out for you."

A/N Ta dah! The begining of my first non-one-shot! And my second fanfic! And my first FFVIII fanfic! Yeah, I know it's not the best, but I based it off of my own experiences with crutches. I'm so clumsy! Please review! I beg of you! Hehe that rhymed!! Anyway, flames are accepted, and complements are good too!!

**Update: **I decided to go through and edit this a little. I didn't do much, just wanted to make things run a little more smoothly. Well, there ya go!

Hoshi

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	2. Clumsy

A/N Yay, I put it up!! I hope you like it! Oh, and sorry for some of the spelling mistakes and such in the last chapter. I'm using word pad instead of microsoft word, and word pad really sucks. So, sorry about that. I'll try to be more careful with this chapter. Oh, and I forgot to do the whole disclaimer thing...ahem.** I do not own Final Fantasy VIII or any of the characters involved. They belong to Square Enix/Soft. If I did do you think I'd spend my time writing "fanfiction?"**

**Chapter two: Clumsy**

The crowd of people parted as Rinoa hobbled her way into the cafeteria maneuvering clumsily on her crutches. She muttered something inaudible as she lost her balance and collided into the wall. She got in line and received her breakfast, only then did she realize she had a problem. How was she supposed to carry her tray full of food and use her crutches at the same time? Rinoa went over the situation in her head, and decided that she would balance the tray on her head and slowly make her way to the closest table. _Yeah, I can do this!_ She lied to herself, _It's only a few feet away. What's the worst that could happen?_ Famous last words.

Rinoa grabbed the tray and balanced it on her head. A few people saw this and cautiously moved away. Rinoa had a reputation for not being the most graceful human being in the Garden. She started making her way to the table. One step...two step... The tray full of food began falling and Rinoa tried to catch it which caused her to fall in to someone carrying their plate of food and their tray flew into the air and landed on one of the students who assumed that someone did it on purpose and started a food fight. The cafeteria erupted. Rinoa was trying to catch her balance and failing, just in time though, like all those fairy tale movies, a certain commander came in and tried to catch Rinoa before she injured herself further. As he ran over he slipped on Rinoa's fallen tray and fell on his back just in time for Rinoa to fall right over him. Squall let out a small scowl at the impact. Okay, maybe it wasn't so much like those fairy tales...

"Hey, you broke my fall! Thanks!" Rinoa was hoping her boyfriend, the commander, wasn't too upset. "You really are softer than the floor!" All she got in reply was a disgruntled 'whatever.' He gently slid her off of him and helped her up. Squall took a look around the cafeteria, it was a mess.

"Rin, why does it seem that where ever you go, you leave a mess in your wake?" Squall glanced at his girlfriend.

"What? It wasn't my fault! I was just trying to balance the tray on my head-"

"Wait, you tried to do what?" Squall sighed, "You could have just asked for help you know." Just then a piece of bologna smothered in mustard hit Squall in the back of the head.

"Hah! I got you!" came the familiar voice. Squall turned around to see a smirking Irvine who just politely tipped his signature cowboy hat. "You guys looked left out so I thought I'd welcome you in!"

If Squall were normal he would have had some smart remark and attacked him, but alas, Squall is far from normal. So, instead he mumbled another "whatever" and started urging Rinoa out of the hectic cafeteria. Once they were free of the dangerous room Squall started walking toward his dorm to wash his head off.

"Hey, wait up!" Squall heard the cry of his girlfriend. He stopped briefly and she caught up to him. "I'm not that fast on these things, geez! So don't walk so fast okay?"

"Whatever."

"Squall, I swear, I'm going to break that habit of yours if it's the last thing I do!" Squall said nothing. "Oh, Squall, can we take a detour? I need to get something from the classroom on the second floor."

"You can. I need to get this crap off of my head." He said as he gestured toward the back of his head.

"Can you at least walk me to the elevator?"

"Fine, let's go." Once they reached the elevator, they parted.

Rinoa got off at the second floor and retrieved her book from the classroom. She had let Quisis borrow it and the instructor had left it in the class when she was teaching. She began making her way to the elevator again with the book squeezed under her chin when she tripped and leaned against the side wall and the book flew over the edge. A few seconds later Rinoa heard an "Ouch! What the heck?" Uh oh...that voice sounded awfully familiar.

A panicked Rinoa risked a peek over the edge. There he was. Commander of Garden, hero of the world, and her boyfriend, on the ground holding a book that was now covered in mustard looking up towards her. "Sorry!" She yelled over the edge.

"Rinoa?! What the...?" Squall sighed as he rubbed the back of his head then realized what he had done. He slowly removed his gloved hand and looked to see mustard smeared all over. He hung his head in defeat. _They didn't train me for THIS at Garden._ He just sat there for a while until he heard the scuff and click of someone on crutches.

"Sorry, it was an accident." Squall looked up into Rinoa's face and sighed again. (that had become a habit of his as well in the past few months.)

"I know, Rin, I know. What I don't know is how one person can be so clumsy." He pushed himself off the ground and stood. He began (again) making his way to his dorm. The trip was done in silence, but once they reached his dorm he finally spoke. "It's really okay, Rin, I guess I'm just a little tired."

Rinoa looked up from the floor into her boyfriend's eyes. "How 'bout we get that horrible mustard off of you?"

"Sounds good to me. I never liked the stuff before, but I think I have a new found hatred for it."

Rinoa waited as Squall went into his bathroom and took a quick shower and got clean clothes on. When he came back out Rinoa tried to stand up too quickly and lost her balance once more falling into Squall and pushing him against the wall. "Sorry." Came the small voice.

Squall silently lifted her chin so her eyes could meet his and leaned forward in a gentle kiss. "Rinoa, as long as you are around I don't think I'll ever be bored. Rinoa chuckled as Squall leaned in again with a slightly more powerful kiss than before. As Rinoa tried to lean in more she thought she felt something smear all over her back and on her head.

Rinoa broke this kiss to see a smile creep onto Squall's face. That was never good. She slowly touched her head and found her fingertips covered in mustard. She wore a shocked expression as Squall revealed that he was still wearing the dirtied glove and smiled mischievously, and said one word, "Payback."

A/N Yay!! I did it! Aren't you so proud of me? I haven't decided if this is it or not. What do you think? More? Or is this enough? Please review! If you do I'll give you...I don't know what I'll give you...how 'bout a bottle o' mustard?

Hoshi

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